By: Eugenie Ross-Leming & Brad Buckner
**Spoilers**
If you have not yet seen this episode, please go and do so before proceeding.
Sammy is a brat. As all younger siblings tend to be whenever they feel they can get away with embarrassing the elders. And he had plenty of ammunition this week as we are taken to meet an old flame of Dean's, Cassie Robinson.
Turns out, while Sam was off at college with Jessica, Dean too met a girl and fell in love. He actually dated her for longer than a weekend too. In fact, he was so in love that he told her the family secret. She promptly dumped him, thinking that he was just crazy or that he was trying to end the relationship with this wild story. But, whenever her father is killed in a strange accident, she gives her old boyfriend a call, begging for his help. And Dean, being the knight Templar that he is, immediately takes Sam and hightails it to Cassie's side. Sam, after getting over his annoyance that Dean broke Winchester Family Rule #1, finds Dean's interactions with his former girlfriend to be a great source of mirth. It's okay, Sammy. I think it's hilarious too. The most fun out of any Winchester Romance is watching the reactions of the brother not involved. Always funny. In this case, this is probably the most awkwardly we've ever seen Dean behave. And Cassie's a pretty nice girl too. I like her. Shame it didn't work out between them.
I really feel like the sensitive race issues were treated very well in this episode as well. It's good that they didn't go with the cliched 'evil white mayor' and that both sides of each argument were presented well. In the end of the day, the real villain was prejudice and hatred...very human emotions that we all have to struggle with at some point in our lives.
Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:
- "By old friend you mean...?" "A friend that's not new." Gotta love Winchester Logic!
- Sam spent a year and a half lying to Jessica?! Whoa...NOT a good foundation for a relationship there. I know why he did it (she'd probably take him to see the campus shrink if he started telling her about wendigos) but still. The Winchesters really aren't cut out for long term relationships, are they?
- I absolutely love the visuals of the ghost truck with the bright headlights cutting through the mist. It really gives an ethereal, otherworldly quality to everything.
- The chase scenes involving this truck are very tense and full of action too. Great stuff.
- It's also suitably spooky whenever they talk about how this truck is leaving no tire tracks behind at the sites of its kills.
- "What's interesting is you guys never really look at each other at the same time. You look at her when she's not looking, she checks you out when you look away. (Grinning) It's just a...just an interesting observation in a....you know...observationally interesting way." Sam just has WAY too much fun with this 'relationship' his brother keeps dancing around.
- I really find it interesting that a lot of emphasis is put in this episode about how all of the problems have come from hatred on both sides. How racism drove someone to do terrible things and then those who were being hurt finally had the upper hand and so struck out in anger and ended up doing something just as terrible.
- "I have heard of a truck like that....not where. When. Back in the '60s there was a string of deaths. Black men. Story goes, they disappeared in a big, nasty, black truck."
- I really appreciate that they didn't go with stereotypical racist mayor. He was actually trying to protect Cassie and her mother and the memory of her father.
- Cassie's mother's speech is just heartbreaking. It's such a tragic story of human evil to begin with, but the actress just sells it with so much raw grief and regret that it really is the high point of the episode. You can feel her pain and you can't help but empathize with her. What a terrible, terrible past.
- The scene where Sam and Dean dig Cyrus' corpse (mummy, actually) and truck out of the swamp is all manner of gross.
- Sam's method of getting rid of Cyrus' spirit is all manner of cool, though...
- This is a really great climax to the episode. By this point, we've seen the truck kill several people. We know that, no matter how skilled a driver Dean is, he's pretty much resigning himself to the same fate because the truck...so far...has always won. And now Dean is racing away to buy Sam some time to figure out how to lay the spirit to rest. It really gets your adrenaline pumping.
- Before he leaves, Dean tells Cassie that he'll call and come back and visit her. She sadly tells him that she knows he won't and they share one last kiss as Sam awkwardly coughs in the background.
Route 666 is a lot of fun. It's hilarious to see Sam teasing Dean about actually dating someone and it's nice to get a bit of a look into Dean's past. But behind this lighthearted façade is a sad, tragic story of human prejudice and hatred that drove men to savagery. It's gritty, it's dark, and it handles some very sensitive ideas and issues with realistic, well-played characters and great storytelling. 4/5.
What did you think? Do you agree with my rating? If not - what would you say differently?
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